3 months ago, I pointed out some faults with how much ambition was valued in the undergraduate startup space. Every community has its own status games, where the winners win based on how high they score on a specific set of values. By trying to play the game, we realize it’s just a social construct.
One of the traits of startups that draws people to founding is the prospect of changing the world—in other words, self-actualizing to a very large degree. The feeling behind this is very sparkly and magical.
I wrote my college application personal statement on the open-air markets where I did my homework. The markets were some cross between farmers markets and art markets.
I had always appreciated open-air markets for the atmosphere… Under each tent, local farmers set out berries and plums… small businesses advertised their crystals… they still created communities even in an industrialized era ruled by efficiency and convenience.
I used it to draw a connection between creating community amidst industrialization and creating a better future through innovation. Obviously, we shouldn’t just sweep the world and turn every firm into an open-air market. But I wanted so desperately for magic to be real.
A year ago, I didn’t think so, and I wrote a blog post I never published arguing that Penn had a “unique lack of magic.” Wharton clubs, non-academic conferences, etc., felt expected, dull, and meaningless.
I think that was wrong.
As thrilled as I have been with studying at Penn—being able to spend most of my time feeling the rhythm of Rousseau’s or Locke’s political philosophy, proving PV = nRT from equations describing the collective properties of individual atoms, and theory-parsing my original industrialization thesis—the magic I have found doesn’t seem to come from those grandiose societal values.
At Penn, I’ve also been able to build my first microscope, pull dreary all-nighters, and engage in mundane obligatory runs.
There was nothing grandiose about any of these. I did them because I realized that I liked working with my hands, wanted to pass a midterm, and that sunlight and fresh air first thing in the morning massively improved my aeratedness for the rest of the day.
Authentically, in high school, I was also thrilled with the markets simply because the quantity of people—the hustle, the corporeality of color—was delicious for my classroomed adolescent mind that was so used to carefully controlled and filtered interpretations of the world’s systems.
At Penn, beyond a mission, there’s a bit of sparkle in 3D-printing pancakes with the Bioengineering Society, photographing mouse figurines in windows in South Philly, waking up to watch the sunrise and seeing the empty campus, and realizing that I much prefer studying with chalkboards over my tablet.
Magic is right in front of us. We just have to be willing to see it.